Study slams the do-gooder culture

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In the recent anthology “What Works in Development?,” a group of economists try to sort out what we’ve learned. The picture is grim. There are no policy levers that consistently correlate to increased growth. There is nearly zero correlation between how a developing economy does one decade and how it does the next. There is no consistently proven way to reduce corruption. Even improving governing institutions doesn’t seem to produce the expected results.

The chastened tone of these essays is captured by the economist Abhijit Banerjee: “It is not clear to us that the best way to get growth is to do growth policy of any form. Perhaps making growth happen is ultimately beyond our control.”

The second hard truth is that micro-aid is vital but insufficient. Given the failures of macrodevelopment, aid organizations often focus on microprojects. More than 10,000 organizations perform missions of this sort in Haiti. By some estimates, Haiti has more nongovernmental organizations per capita than any other place on earth. They are doing the Lord’s work, especially these days, but even a blizzard of these efforts does not seem to add up to comprehensive change.

Third, it is time to put the thorny issue of culture at the center of efforts to tackle global poverty. Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well. Haiti has endured ruthless dictators, corruption and foreign invasions. But so has the Dominican Republic, and the D.R. is in much better shape. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island and the same basic environment, yet the border between the two societies offers one of the starkest contrasts on earth " with trees and progress on one side, and deforestation and poverty and early death on the other.
As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book “The Central Liberal Truth,” Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.

We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.

Fourth, it’s time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/opinion/15brooks.html?hp

Can we kindly now all agree that the conservatives have a point when they object to blindly "helping" other people and peoples by way of charity? That we should not let other people use their life story and claims of hurt feelings dissuade us from demanding that they do their best to make a better life for themselves before we offer assistance?

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I completly agree.

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@hawkeye10,

Poor Haiti started as a slave society that make the old south look like heaven.

They at one point was working to death 30,000 slaves a year that needed to be constantly replace year after year.

Then we have them invaded by everyone at one point in time or another from France, England and the US and somehow France was also able to collect a 100 million or so from the former slaves as payment for them losing their slave colony.

And we now we had fools trying to blame the victims of man and nature for somehow not doing better and that it all the fault of the do-gooders in some manner or other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amazing that after they been hit by I think the numbers is three hurricanes in 2008 and now a very major earthquake it is their faults that they are not doing better or the fault of the small group that is trying to help them instead of kicking them in the balls for the last 200 years.

If we could just keep kicking them they would get up and do better! Hell the right thing to do is to enslave them again for their own damn good.

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@BillRM,

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And we now we had fools trying to blame the victims of man and nature for somehow not doing better and that it all the fault of the go-gooders in some manner or other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Riiight....you must be right. But on the other hand

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Earthquakes don't kill people," says John Mutter, a seismologist and disaster expert at Columbia University's Earth Institute. "Bad buildings kill them." And Haiti had some of the worst buildings in world. There are building codes, but in a country that has been ranked as the 10th most corrupt in the world, enforcement is lax at best. The concrete blocks used to construct buildings in the capital are often handmade, and are of wildly varying quality. "In Haiti a block is maybe an eighth of the weight of a concrete block that you'd buy in the U.S.," says Peter Haas, the executive director of the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG), an NGO that has worked on buildings in Haiti. "You end up providing buildings quickly and cheaply but at great risk."

It was the people of Port au Prince who ended up suffering those risks, as the earthquake caused buildings to collapse and pancake, crushing those living within.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1953379_1953494_1954338,00.html?xid=rss-world#ixzz0cqWrm1Oi

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@hawkeye10,

God it must be nice to live in a dream world where the poorest nation on this side of the world should somehow be able to build buildings of the same standard as the California earthquake codes. Oh I forgot it is their fault that they are poor!!!!!!! It have nothing to do with the ongoing bad treatment from the rest of the world that so far had cover two hundred years non-stop.

Hell how many people lost their lives in the last major California earthquake when roadways and buildings came down on them? A few thousands was it not and that quake was a very very minor one compare to the one that had just hit Haiti.

Dream on fool that it is the victims fault and the small groups that are trying to help.

Second note I would not be surprise one little bit that the corruption in the area I live in South Florida every year cost more then the total GNP of Haiti for the last 10 years.

Yes looking down on others must make you feel better in some manner.

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@BillRM,

America alone has spent $800 million on Haiti over these last few years, there is no poverty excuse. Nor have they been mistreated recently. Haitians are professional victims who refuse to do for themselves, which IS their fault.

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@hawkeye10,

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The authors ask "why, after consuming billions in foreign aid over three decades, and hundreds of millions specifically for governance and democratization programs, not to mention billions for other programs, Haiti remains politically dysfunctional and impoverished."

Much of the failed progress stems from fifty-plus years of political instability. That has resulted in little progress, and also disrupted aid efforts, which have been cut and reinstated numerous times over the years by donors responding to the political crises.

The end result? Economic, social and health indicators that point to systemic poverty. Some three-fourths of the population lives on less than $2 per day, half the population has no access to potable water, one-third have no sanitary facilities, a tenth of the population has electricity, fully 95 percent of employment is in the underground economy about four percent of the population owns some two-thirds of the country's wealth, while NGOs and other groups deliver some four-fifths of public services, according to Buss and Gardner.

http://www.governancevillage.org/blogs/gvnewsblog/cananaidsurgesavehaiti

Aid has not worked, it has been largely wasted, thrown into the black hole of corruption that consumes Haitian institutions. The kids on the corner today with coffee cans collecting money for the poor unfortunates of Haiti have good intentions, but their efforts will almost certainly amount to nothing positive for Haiti.

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@hawkeye10,

Lord 800 millions I hate to tell you this but South Florida taxpayers is paying for a non-needed baseball park to the tune of a billion dollars for the benefit of a well-connected owner.

Talk about corruption and waste, the Miami airport project is a few billions dollars over budget and the seaport had a billion or so disappearing over the years. Oh then we had the case of one basketball stadium build at taxpayer expense and the torn down ten years later because it was too small and a new one build at a cost of many hundred of millions of dollars

Eight hundred millions is nothing at all when you are talking about aiding the poorest of the poor nation and for your information over a billion dollars flow into Haiti every year from hard working Haitians living in the US and sending money back home.

Somehow I would not be surprise if American businesses would not be taking out far more then 800 millions from the poor Haitian economic also.

So as these people are carrying their dead to the graveyard and needing to dig the graves themselves it make you feel better to look down on them?

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@hawkeye10,

Oh I forgot the Miami Dolphin football team just announced that they wish 250 millions of taxpayer dollars to build a partial roof over their stadium for the announce reason of keeping getting super bowls!

You think that 800 millions of aid with all kind of strings attached, I am sure, should had been enough to end Haiti problems if they just was not no good bums and their culture is the problem?

A culture that had them braving death to reach the US and then sending a large percent of their minimum wage or less income back to their families to keep them from starving to death.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

and the Canadians put in well over $100 mill a year directly, the UN through the security force MINUSTAH puts in $600 million a year, and all of the NGOs put in a ton of money, and we have illegals in America who send back $1 billion a year, and, and and and.....

There are only 9 million Haitian people. Poverty is no excuse for their failure to develop a functioning society. Haitians have failed to use assistance wisely, WHICH IS THEIR OWN FAULT!

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@hawkeye10,

Hawkeye the problem here is that I know any numbers of Haitians living in South Florida very well indeed.

One of my superiors/friends in my old company happens to be a Haitian gentleman who was even nice enough to fly to Las Vegas to attend my wedding.

I had never found any problem with their work ethic or their culture that you seem to enjoy looking down on from your right wing viewpoint that anyone or any group that find itself behind the eight ball for any reason then it must be because of some fault of their culture.

That offering aid is an evil and pointless thing to do and if we do offer token aid and it does not produce a miracle that is proof that we should just declare that it the fault of their culture and walk away from dying men women and children.

Eight hundred millions is token aid even if there was no string attach to that aid and I would bet most of those funds ended up benefiting American business firms because of such strings. Eight hundred millions is not even the cost of one major league baseball stadium or a B2 bomber.

It is also their fault that in a major earthquake, their buildings fell down and because it is their fault, we should not come to their aid now.

As I had pointed out in California in a far milder earthquake buildings and over head roadways fell down and the average income is slightly more, even now days, then 400 dollars a year in California unlike Haiti.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

so on the one hand we have bill who knows and likes a few Haitian expats so knows that this loss of life is not the fault of haitians, and on the other we have a near unanimous opinion of experts developed over two decades of shoveling aid to haiti that the problem is not the level of international aid to Haiti but rather internal problems with Haiti.

Which ever opinion will we go with, it is such a close call.......NOT!

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@hawkeye10,

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and the Canadians put in well over $100 mill a year directly, the UN through the security force MINUSTAH puts in $600 million a year, and all of the NGOs put in a ton of money, and we have illegals in America who send back $1 billion a year, and, and and and.....

No only have you no heart you can not do math it would seem as dividing the large sum of a billion dollars over the population of Haiti mean that they all would all get the large sum of a little over a 100 dollars! That or ten times that should solve all these bums problems correct?

Now you also seem to wish to have it both ways they are bums who will not work and yet they dare to take a 50/50 chance or so of death at sea to earn less then minimum wage and send a billion dollars back every year and this is also wrong in your eyes.

They instead should just watch their children die slowly instead of annoying you right wingers by breaking our laws and in so doing greatly benefiting many American companies by providing cheap labor.

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Haitians have failed to use assistance wisely, WHICH IS THEIR OWN FAULT!

Your ton of money amount to a hundred dollars per person or less.

Sorry for the most part it is not their own fault in any way. It is not their fault that they got hit by three hurricanes in 2008 or a very major earthquake in 2010. It is not their fault that their buildings could not stand up to an 8 scale quake either. When it come California turn once more for such a quake a large percent of their buildings will not survive even given a strong and enforce building code.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

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Now you also seem to wish to have it both ways they are bums who will not work and yet they dare to take a 50/50 chance or so of death at sea to earn less then minimum wage and send a billion dollars back every year and this is also wrong in your eyes.

I do believe that we should not allow illegals to work, should not allow them to use wire services to ship dollars out of America, should seek to stop them at the border and if that fails seek to find and deport them.....but that was not my point. My point was only that though the charity and/or irresponsibility of allowing Haitians to do these things we allow support to Haiti to the tune of over $100 per person per year.

1 Reply

@hawkeye10,

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I do believe that we should not allow illegals to work, should not allow them to use wire services to ship dollars out of America, should seek to stop them at the border and if that fails seek to find and deport them.....but that was not my point. My point was only that though the charity and/or irresponsibility of allowing Haitians to do these things we allow support to Haiti to the tune of over $100 per person per year.

Sorry we do not allow illegals to work for the benefit of illegals we allow illegals to work for the benefit of business.

With such workers, they get sub minimum wages workers with no other legal protection also.

We have laws against them to make the right wingers happy and to stop them from being able to complain about their treatment but those laws will not be enforce in any way other then in a token manner as to do so would cost the owning class more then the GNP of a hundreds Haiti.

And a 100 dollars a year and using it wisely you got to be kidding me. Please tell me you are kidding me.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

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And a 100 dollars a year and using it wisely you got to be kidding me. Please tell me you are kidding me.

the average Haitian makes $400 a year, so $100 a year is significant. You do understand the mathematical concept of ratios and percentages don't you?

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@hawkeye10,

Lord so a hundred dollars is significant because they are so damn poor however it is still only a hundred dollars and mean nothing to the US or the European countries and in fact it is far far far less then a token amount.

An amount way too small to be able to change the conditions in Haiti in any way no matter how wise they would invested those funds.

So your position that we are in fact aiding them in a meaningful way and by so doing are harming them is nonsense.

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@hawkeye10,

Oh another question for you I just needed to spend three hundred dollars in vet bills to save a kitten of mine life and yet if the average Haiti father needed medical treatment for his child that would cost a similar amount he would need to watch his child die.

Do you have any moral problem with that fact?

Is it the father fault or his child fault that he happen to be born into a dirt poor country instead of a Western society?

You position seem to be that somehow it is their faults that their home had come down on their heads in a 8 scale earthquake.

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